Maintenance of commercial aircraft fleets requires the coordination of multiple service and information providers, as well as part suppliers. Line and base maintenance operations required to support aircraft flight readiness require up-to-date service manuals, maintenance repair records, engineering drawings, trained personnel, specialized tools, facilities, parts and an array of other resources. The logistics required for deploying, warehousing and maintaining inventories of repair parts at multiple service locations is also complicated, since parts must be procured from multiple suppliers as well the OEM aircraft manufacturers. Supply chain management and coordination of service providers is made more challenging where fleet aircraft serve wide geographic areas, making centralized service and inventory control by the airline operators impractical.
While some minor maintenance, e.g. line maintenance, is performed by certain airline operators, most operators either perform their own extensive maintenance (typically performed at base maintenance facilities) or outsource their maintenance by contracting with MROs (maintenance, repair and overhaul organizations). The airline operators nevertheless remain largely responsible for managing the material supply chain, performing service operations, coordinating ground service equipment, and managing information flow, including compliance with regulatory and maintenance certification requirements such as Air Worthiness Directives (ADs). Consequently, multiple commercial airlines must dedicate identical resources for maintaining the internal infrastructure and personnel needed to manage the various service and material management activities outlined above.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a centralized, integrated maintenance and materials management system, which overcomes the deficiencies of the prior art discussed above. The present invention is directed toward satisfying this need.